When beer or malt based fermented beverages (collectively referred to herein as “beer”) are widely distributed stored in bottles and metal cans, there is a marked preference by the public for beers served directly on tap from a keg, referred to as draught (or draft) beer. Since draught beer was traditionally served in large volumes in public houses (pubs) and restaurants, large capacity re-usable metal kegs were traditionally used, typically 50 l kegs (=11 Imperial gallons). In recent years, however; a reduction of the kegs capacity offered on the market has been observed. There are two main factors explaining this trend.
First, brewers have developed various solutions for offering draught beer to particulars with specifically designed home appliances. It is clear that if 50 l kegs can be emptied reasonably rapidly in a pub, this is not the case for home appliances. Hence, smaller kegs of 5 to 15 l capacity were developed. Such home appliances are often referred to as “table top dispensers” because they are small enough to stand on top of a table.
Second, even in pubs, the tastes of the consumers have shifted from traditional lager beers towards special beers, with more specific flavours. This diversification of the types of beers offered for consumption in pubs has pushed brewers to store their special beers in smaller capacity kegs, ranging from 8 to 25 l kegs. Since such kegs are too large to stand on top of a counter, and probably too small to justify storing them in a basement far away from the tap, they are usually stored directly under the tapping column, usually in a refrigerated chamber. For this reason and by opposition to the expression “table top dispensers”, such dispensing systems used in pubs are often referred to as “under the counter dispensers”.
With the reduction of kegs capacity, however, the cost of packaging (=keg) per liter of beer sold increased accordingly. Alternative solutions to re-usable metal kegs, which need be cleaned and sterilized before each (re-) filling, had to be developed, typically replacing metal kegs by polymeric kegs made for example of PET and generally disposable and recyclable. Furthermore, pressure inside the container is usually raised by injecting pressurized CO2 into the container, because air upon contacting the beer would oxidize and degrade it too rapidly. To allow the use of pressurized air fed e.g., by an air compressor to drive the dispensing of draught beer, integrally blow-moulded bag-in-containers were developed, wherein the beer is contained in a flexible inner bag inserted in an outer, rigid container, and pressurized gas is injected into the space between the inner bag and outer container to collapse the inner bag and drive the beer out of the bag. As illustrative examples, integrally blowmoulded polymeric bag-in-containers are disclosed in WO2008129018, WO2008129016, WO2008129012, WO2008129015, or WO2008129013.
Regardless of its size, before use a beer keg must be connected to a dispensing line and to a source of pressurized gas. Home appliances have been designed with their own specific solution for rapidly connecting a dispensing line and a gas source to the interior of the kegs (cf. e.g., WO2012056018), U.S. Pat. No. 5,251,787, U.S. Pat. No. 5,110,012, or U.S. Pat. No. 4,739,901. In some cases, the source of pressurized gas is stored in the keg itself, but this solution is rather expensive and to date implementable with quite small kegs only (cf. e.g., WO9947451, WO2007/108684). In pubs, however, although the kegs designs have changed dramatically as discussed above, the same equipment as for large 50 l kegs is often still being used downstream from the keg all the way to the tap, including the keg connector, the dispensing line and gas duct, and draught column and tap. For example, conventional keg connectors are usually made of metal, are heavy, complex and expensive. Examples of conventional keg connectors are disclosed in WO9407791, U.S. Pat. No. 3,545,475, DE9109177U. They are ill-fitted for smaller polymeric kegs, typically of 8 to 25 l kegs. Some solutions have been proposed to replace conventional keg connectors with simpler connectors.
WO2007/108684 discloses a simplified keg connector comprising a single connection to a dispensing tube. The keg connector is designed without a connection to a pressurized gas tube because the pressurized gas source is stored in a container located inside the keg. Absent a connection to a pressurized gas source, the requirements, in particular mechanical, clamping, and sealing properties, on the keg connector are substantially reduced, and the size thereof could be reduced accordingly. Numerous connectors for coupling a single dispensing duct to a container comprising no pressurized gas connection have been disclosed in fields other than beer kegs, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,871,679, EP2012052, or WO200107819, but are not suitable for a quick connection of a beer keg to both a dispensing line and a pressurized gas source.
WO9840703 discloses a connector for coupling a container containing chemicals to a dispensing line and a gas line. This connector is, however, bulky and oversized for connecting small beverage kegs of about 8 to 25 l capacity. EP1347936 discloses a small size keg connector comprising a connection to both a source of pressurized gas and a dispensing tube. The keg connector of EP1347936, however, is not connected to a closure of the keg, as it acts as a closure per se. Each new keg is sold with such connector already clamped into position with a new dispensing line coupled thereto. A keg connector concomitantly acting as closure is also disclosed in US2011210148 and US2008217362 but in these cases, the connectors are reversibly coupled to a container by a thread and can be removed therefrom and used with a new container. Closures acting also as connectors have been used extensively for “table top dispensers” such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,251,787, U.S. Pat. No. 5,110,012, WO2012056018, cited above, and the like. These, however, are not suitable for use in pubs, wherein kegs are to be coupled in fluid communication with corresponding dispensing tap columns in “under the counter dispensers”.
It is advantageous to store the containers in a refrigerated chamber, possibly located under the counter supporting the tap columns. Because of their size, conventional kegs are always used standing vertically when connected to a tap column. Indeed, they are designed with a bottom chime allowing their stable standing and they are so heavy that they cannot be handled easily. Furthermore the dispensing of beer stored in conventional kegs requires a hollow spear to penetrate deep into the beverage in order to allow the flow thereof through the spear upon increase of the pressure in the keg. If a keg were lying on its side, the spear would cease to be submerged under the level of beverage as soon as the keg would be about half empty; unless a flexible spear is used. Smaller kegs, however, are disadvantageous compared with larger kegs, because they occupy only a fraction of the height available in the storing compartment and fully occupied below the counter by larger kegs.
There remains a need in the art for under the counter appliances of the type used in pubs and restaurants, which are particularly adapted for smaller kegs of the order of 8 to 25 l capacity and usually made of polymeric material. The present invention proposes such dispensing appliance. These and other advantages of the present invention are discussed more in details in the following sections.